Lekker Brekker Monday: Sage and onion mushrooms on toast

Operating without a hob of any kind means having to be inventive with how you cook certain things. Everything is being made in air fryers right now – three of them, in fact.

Three air fryers might seem excessive, but in my food writing life two were just not cutting it any more. When we made our long-delayed move to Cape Town I chose to leave the big old gas oven behind. In its place in our much smaller new home is a gas hob built into a workbench. It’s decent quality, a Bosch, but I’m not comfortable having a gas bottle inside the house so decided to wait until the year starts up properly before getting professionals in to install a gas bottle in a box outside.

In the meantime, my family heard my desperate pleas and gave me exactly what I was hoping for, for Christmas: a Kenwood 25l air fryer oven. This replaces the big appliance we left behind in Cradock.

It has a door that opens downwards in front, with a lovely big window in it, and there’s an oven light that shines super brightly. It has a rotisserie and a tubular chip basket that can be attached to it. I’ve already done a chicken on the spit and made crispy potato chips in the revolving basket.

My cooking life has been revolutionised in one week.

All of this adds up to lots of cooking fun to come, for me and for you if you go on this ride with me. All year. Let’s see what we find.

But let’s start small, with this recipe that involved baking a loaf of bread in the new Kenwood while cooking sliced mushrooms with onion and sage in a drawer of the older, smaller twin-drawer one.

And I’m starting to wonder if I even need to buy a new toaster because the big oven toasts quickly and perfectly. The elements above and below (for it has both) come on simultaneously, and the close proximity of them to the bread on a rack in the middle of the machine makes for astonishing speed.

Here’s the recipe for that Paul Hollywood loaf. After which, slice it and toast about two slices each for this recipe for mushrooms with sage and onion.

Ingredients

250g portobello mushrooms, sliced

1 medium onion, sliced

6 to 8 fresh sage leaves, broken up, and a few more for garnish

3 Tbsp butter, for the mushrooms and onions

Salt and black pepper to taste

Juice and finely grated zest of ½ lemon

Butter, for spreading on the toast

Method

Make the loaf of white bread, or use shop-bought bread of your choice.

Add the 3 Tbsp butter to the basket of an air fryer (without using the rack) and turn the machine on to preheat to 180°C. After about 3 minutes the butter should have melted.

Add the sliced onions and mushrooms and a few torn sage leaves. Season with black pepper and salt.

Cook in the air fryer at 180°C for about 10 minutes, shaking the basket a couple of times.

Add the lemon juice and zest, stir the contents of the basket, and cook for 5 more minutes.

Cut the number of slices of bread you need and toast them. Butter them immediately and generously.

Spoon the mushrooms and onion on top, and garnish with sage leaves. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award, in 2021 and 2023.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.